Tag: joy

Categories
Christian Living

Owing God

Do you remember who said, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”?

close up of a visa card representing debtPersonally, I don’t like to be in debt, so I try to pay what I owe a.s.a.p. But I’m having a hard time with this one – God paid off my debt of sin on the cross…that means I owe Him, but I’m having a bit of trouble paying Him back. Can someone give me some suggestions?

John Piper says – “The debtor’s ethic has a deadly appeal to immature Christians…. The Christian life is pictured as an effort to pay back the debt we owe to God.” Too often I find myself slipping into this immature, unbiblical belief that I can somehow pay Him back.

The “debtor ethic” idea has us owing God and needing to pay Him back, but the truth is that God is not a loanshark. He didn’t pay my debt so that I would pay Him back at some outrageous interest rate. He doesn’t have the attitude of “I paid it all, Brian, so you owe Me your all and should pay up out of a sense of duty.” And yet that is often the attitude with which I seem to serve Him. I have to learn to wrap my head around the idea that I should serve not out of a debtor’s ethic but out of gratitude and joy and love due to His grace. I should serve out of love for both past grace received and future grace to come!

Since I have zero ability to pay Him back what I owe, I should just revel in the grace that I have received and joyously serve Him as Lord. The sense shouldn’t be – “You saved my life, so now I should work my whole life to pay you back.” It should be more like “You loved me so much that you saved my life, and that has made me fall in love with You! I love you so much that all I want to do is serve you all my life!”

The Apostle John wrote: “We love because He first loved us.” His love has drawn me into a deep love for Him. And it is from that love that I now joyously serve Him. I hope you are serving Him joyously out of love instead of grudgingly out of a sense of debt.

Categories
Christian Living

The Good Enough Life

After Katrina came through in ‘05, I was given the opportunity to rebuild my library by looking through boxes of generously donated books. One of the books I received was Christy by Catherine Marshall. I had no interest in the “girlie-sounding” book. But being bored one day, I picked it up and began to read. I was quickly surprised, because I had no idea the great Christian themes that I would find within its pages.

rustic lantern attached to a wooden door frameThe story is about Christy, a young woman who chooses to go into the Appalachian Mountains to do mission work among the mountain people who lived there. On considering why she had come to the mountains to do missions… “My mind went back to my life in Asheville. Teas and receptions and ladies’ genteel talk. Church on Sunday mornings. Shopping and dress fittings. Dance-parties and picnics in the summer. A good enough life, only what did it all mean?”

Do you ever feel like all you have is a “good enough life”?
I want something more than good enough. I want excitement, joy, blessing, full contentment, abundant life.
But too often I settle for “good enough.”

Christy continued: “Where was it leading? There must be more to life than that. Or is there…? What was I born for, after all? I have to know. If I stayed at home…I don’t think I ever would know. Mother and father didn’t understand my eagerness, why I had wanted to come before I’d graduated. But I couldn’t wait forever.”

How many times have I told God “No” and kept myself from going on the adventures He was calling me to begin? There is always an excuse we can find. God is calling us into an abundant life full of those things that I said I wanted – excitement, joy, blessing, and full contentment. I hope you won’t wait forever to go on the adventure that God is calling you into. When we answer His call on our lives, we will find true, abundant life full of explosive joy.

Until then, when you fill your days and life with things that are good enough, I hope you will realize that good enough is not sufficient, because He wants you to discover abundant life in Him. That won’t always be safe, secure, or full of material wealth, but it will be exciting and bring you full contentment!


— brian rushing